India has already sought access to Rana and is hoping that Headley’s agreement with the US authorities to testify against Rana will open the doors for Indian agencies to interrogate him.
“We have already sought access to Rana. He may not be able to plea bargain with the US authorities since Headley is already spilling the beans on him,” a government official said. Headley, in his plea agreement, has said Rana knew about the “LeT membership” and the “operation details” of the Mumbai terror attack.
Visiting US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake indicated that India will have full access to all information on Headley. “... I think you will have full access to all the information,” he told the media outside South Block here Friday.
However, Mr Blake said he was not in a position to answer if an Indian team could visit the US to question Headley. “... I encourage you to be in touch with our justice department,” he said.
He added that Headley’s confession showed that the global scope and ambition of the LeT had grown significantly and that countries such as Pakistan needed to do more to combat terrorist groups. Following Headley’s plea bargain agreement, India can now seek access to him though legal channels where he could be made to “testify” against LeT operatives based in Pakistan and shed light on the alleged role of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, the ISI and the Pakistan Army in carrying out the 26/11 terror attack. India feels its stand on Pakistan’s role in 26/11 “is vindicated” by his confessions in the US court. “The US has now accepted that there were players” other than the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terrorists in the conspiracy behind 26/11,” a government official said.
However, if Headley is let off with a lighter sentence in the US, the Indian agencies intend to gather enough evidence to press fresh charges against him. “The security agencies can register a fresh case and seek his extradition,” a senior official said.
Meanwhile, Union home minister P. Chidambaram on Friday said the plea bargain between Headley and the US government was not a “setback” to India and “it will continue to press for his extradition...” He added: “Since he was apprehended in the US we had apprehended problems in extradition. But we have not given up our plea. We will continue to maintain our plea for his extradition. But it will depend on what the court decides on the plea bargain.”
Mr Chidambaram said India would file charges against the 49-year-old Headley at the “appropriate time” and seek access to him. He said the US has provided “significant amount of information” with regard to Headley’s activities, but many questions remained unanswered and India wanted replies to these. He maintained that the plea bargain between Headley and the US government would provide an opportunity to India to question him as he has agreed to “fully and truthfully testify to any foreign judicial proceedings held in the US, either through deposition, video-conferencing or through letters rogatory (a formal communication to request the testimony of a witness residing in a foreign land)”.
There is also a good chance that he will testify in a US court where Indian authorities will have a chance to ask questions, he said. He, however, added that the fate of the plea bargain would depend on the court, which is not a party to it although the court is “by and large bound” by it.
Earlier on Friday, US ambassador to India Timothy Roemer, who was replying to a question after his speech to the Asia Society Corporate Conference here on Friday, said the LeT, Taliban and Al Qaeda are “common enemies” of India and the US. “We (India and the US) are working shoulder to shoulder, minute to minute in the field of information-sharing and collection and analysis of intelligence,” he said.
Age Correspondents